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"1169 And Counting is a wealth of information on our Republican past and present , and demonstrates how the Irish political landscape , like that of any nation, will never be a black and white issue..."

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Friday, March 18, 2005

MURDER MOST FOUL ....... By Joe Egan . A lecture delivered to Dublin Republicans by Joe Egan on 26th November 1989 : I have had the following document for the past 16 years ; it was given to me by its author , a friend and true Irish Republican and deserves a wider readership - John Horan .

" In his last letters to his wife , Wolfe Tone wrote -

- " ... be assured I will die as I have lived , and that you will have no cause to blush for me . Adieu , dearest love , keep your courage as I have kept mine . My mind is as tranquil this moment as at any period of my life . "

Are these the words of a man contemplating suicide ? No ! Wolfe Tone knew that suicide would have damned his reputation irreparably and consequently the cause he dedicated his life to . There is only one conclusion to be drawn knowing the man - murder by a person or persons unknown .

WOMEN IN IRELAND'S FIGHT FOR FREEDOM ....... By the late Cork Republican , Gearoid MacCarthaigh .

" In most cases , women had to play the harder part of waiting alone at home to rear their families while the men were away fighting or were in prison . Very often they waited in vain as their men were dead .

During the Land League , Fanny Parnell founded the Womens Land League ; this organisation became so militant that Fanny Parnell was ordered by her father to disband it as he considered it a danger to his political career !

The next womens organisation to appear on the Irish scene was Innean na hEireann , founded at the turn of the century by Maud Gonne McBride . During the visit to Dublin by Britain's Queen Victoria the women of this organisation hung a black banner over O'Connell Street in protest at the visit . They hung black flags from the windows of many houses throughout Dublin , in many cases barricading the doors of the houses to impede the RIC when they tried to get in to pull down the flags .

A party had been arranged for selected children of British supporters in Dublin to celebrate the visit of the Queen of England ; Maud Gonne McBride and the women of her organisation held a party for the poor Irish children living in the Dublin slums . This was held in the Phoenix Park ....... "

' Should the new government allow itself to be goaded into a denial of this democratic right then , indeed , will a very serious situation have been created - a situation that will call for the co-ordinated effort of all citizens who value freedom to end for all time .

[END of 'INCITEMENT TO COERCION : DEMOCRACY IN DANGER .......'].

NEXT : 'A POTENT WEAPON OF AGGRESSION' . (Same source as above).

' The Concentration Camp , that modern nightmare of all freedom loving peoples , is yet another of the scourges for which mankind has to thank the British Empire .

The Concentration Camp idea was first introduced by Britain , in her war against the Boers in South Africa ; thousands of men , women and children were herded together behind barbed wire enclosures under the most degrading conditions . The modern totalitarian states - of all shades - have used it to the full to crush out resistance to their will and to keep subject peoples in slavery ....... '

Thursday, March 17, 2005

MURDER MOST FOUL ....... By Joe Egan . A lecture delivered to Dublin Republicans by Joe Egan on 26th November 1989 : I have had the following document for the past 16 years ; it was given to me by its author , a friend and true Irish Republican and deserves a wider readership - John Horan .

" During his last speech from the dock , Wolfe Tone stated - "... I mention this for the sake of others , for me I am indifferent to it . I am aware of the fate which awaits me , and scorn equally the tone of complaint and that of supplication .

Whatever be the sentence of this court , I am prepared for it . Its members will surely discharge their duty ; I shall take care not to be wanting in mine . " Tone's use of the word eternal and his duty are obvious references to God and posterity and he would have been fully aware and very careful about their use .

Any study of the man and any understanding of him as a person to those who wish to see the truth can only draw the one conclusion . To quote just a line or two from his last letters to his wife ....... "

(MORE LATER).

WOMEN IN IRELAND'S FIGHT FOR FREEDOM . By the late Cork Republican , Gearoid MacCarthaigh .

" This article is written as a tribute to all those Irish women who , in every generation , have played a part in Ireland's fight for freedom . Often they have not been appreciated for the part they played . ' Behind every great man is a great women ' is a very old saying and it is well known - but I do not agree with it !

I claim it should read - ' At the right-hand side of every great man is a great woman . ' In many cases she is far ahead of him , but never behind ! In the earlier days when women were not as emancipated as they are today , women did not always get the opportunity to play their full part in the fight but there are exceptions to this and such names as Ann Devlin and Sarah Curran stand out in Irish history .

During the 1798 Rising and later during Robert Emmet's time women often acted as scouts and look-outs for the men ; there were cases where they participated in the actual fighting and of course they took care of men who were wounded in the fighting ....... "

' In advocating this policy and in presenting it to the Irish people , Sinn Fein is simply exercising a right accorded to citizens of a democratic State . Is the exercise of this right to be denied now that Sinn Fein entered the contest of the recent elections and secured for its policy a surprisingly large vote of endorsement ? Is the organ through which expression is given to the policy and programme of Sinn Fein to be suppressed or otherwise forced out of existence ?

Apparently our boasted democracy is to go by the board , and methods substituted for it that are the recognised practice of full-blooded authoritarian States should the leader of the opposition in Leinster House succeed in his very obvious effort to goad the new governmet into a continuance , or perhaps an intensification , of the most recent phase of coercion of members of Sinn Fein which he initiated . Why Mr. Costello's further statement -

- " This is a very serious situation which all parties in this House and all individuals must co-operate together to end for all time . "

For the employment of coercion measures against members of the Republican Movement no member of the government , or of the opposition , sought or obtained a mandate from the electorate in the recent elections . Neither did they seek or obtain from the electorate a mandate to hamper or prevent Sinn Fein from exercising its fundamental and democratic right to put its policy before the people of Ireland in its own way and through its own selected media .

Should the new government allow itself to be goaded into a denial of this democratic right then , indeed , will a very serious situation have been created ....... '

Wednesday, March 16, 2005

MURDER MOST FOUL ....... By Joe Egan . A lecture delivered to Dublin Republicans by Joe Egan on 26th November 1989 : I have had the following document for the past 16 years ; it was given to me by its author , a friend and true Irish Republican and deserves a wider readership - John Horan .

" Regarding the French , Wolfe Tone said - " Attached to no party in the French Republic , without interest , without money , without intrigue , the openness and integrity of my views raised me to a high and confidential rank in its armies ; under the flag of the French Republic , I originally engaged with a view to save and liberate my own country . For that purpose , I have encountered the chances of war , amongst strangers .

For that purpose , I have repeatedly braved the terrors of the ocean , covered as I knew it to be , with the triumphant fleets of that power , which it was my glory and my duty to oppose . I have sacrificed all my views in life ; I have courted poverty , I have left a beloved wife , unprotected children I adored , fatherless . After such sacrifices , in a cause which I have always conscientiously considered as the cause of justice and freedom - it is no great effort , at this day , to add the sacrifice of my life .

To the eternal disgrace of those who gave the order , I was brought hither in irons , like a felon ....... ""

To me , Reagan's speech to the retirement community in Florida was well beyond political hyperbole ; it was flirting with senility . And next month , the man with that 'vision' of the United States , Ronald Wilson Reagan , celluloid hero , may finally make it to the Presidency . If he does he will be inaugurated almost two years after the death of John Wayne .

He was born just two years after the deaths of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid .......

' In point of fact the candidates nominated by Sinn Fein were publicly pledged not to " ... sit in or take part in the proceedings of any Parliament ... other than the Parliament of the Irish Republic . " To the full extent of its capacity and abilities Sinn Fein made it clear that its elected representatives would not take their seats in Leinster House .

On this understanding approximately 66,000 voters , in 19 out of the total of 40 constituencies , registered their approval and support for the Sinn Fein policy . Sinn Fein recognises the Leinster House Parliament precisely for what it is - for what it has been since its inception - one of three institutions of Government legislating for an Ireland forcibly partitioned by an alien power .

Whatever validity it has as such is not questioned and is therefore not denied . Again Mr. Costello is reported to have stated - " I believe myself ... that there are people and organs of public opinion that have been directly responsible through their speeches and writings for bringing about a situation in which the institutions of the State have been brought into something like disrepute . " Many times in the past party politicians have challenged Sinn Fein to put its policy and programme before the public and to seek for it the support of the electorate .

It is very definitely the intention of Sinn Fein to do precisely this when future occasions arise , not because of any challenge issued , but simply because it is a fundamental part of its policy to seek the support of the Irish people for the reintegration of our National Territory and for the enthronement of a National Government of the Irish Republic ....... '

Tuesday, March 15, 2005

MURDER MOST FOUL ....... By Joe Egan . A lecture delivered to Dublin Republicans by Joe Egan on 26th November 1989 : I have had the following document for the past 16 years ; it was given to me by its author , a friend and true Irish Republican and deserves a wider readership - John Horan .

" Without knowing the man , even reading his last letters is enough to disprove the abominable lie that he committed suicide . Did he not write to his wife - " My mind is as tranquil this moment as at any period in my life . "

One only has to read his last speech from the dock at his trial to see and understand the character of the man . Just to quote a few lines is enough to convince any fair mind of the impossibility of Wolfe Tone committing suicide ; only the avowed enemies of truth and justice could dare say otherwise -

" Mr. President and gentlemen of the Court Martial : I mean not to give you the trouble of bringing judicial proof to convict me legally to having acted in hostility to the government of his Britannic Majesty in Ireland . I admit the fact from my earliest youth , I have regarded the connection between Ireland and Great Britain as the curse of the Irish nation and felt convinced that , whilst it lasted , this country could never be free nor happy . " "

Then there is the excerpt from a speech that he gave a couple of months ago to a retirement community in Florida ; normally , I skip quickly through the overheated rhetoric but this time one paragraph caught my eye - and wound up haunting me for several days . Reagan is talking to senior citizens about assassinations , bombings , kidnappings , terrorism - the moral depravity of a world turned upside down when , all of a sudden , he said -

" All of these things have happened to a United States that most of you can remember , as I do remember , a United States that even when an American was on business , or vacation , or wherever , and got caught in some little country that was having a revolution , or got caught in a war , all that the American had to do was pin to his lapel a little American flag and he could walk right through that war and nobody would lay a finger on him . Well , I want to see that United States back in the world again . "

' Normally Sinn Fein does not reply directly to statements of a derogatory nature emanating from political party sources . Because of their implications it is felt necessary to depart from this practice in the case of statements attributed to Mr. Costello , outgoing Taoiseach , when speaking recently in the Leinster House parliament .

Mr. Costello is reported as having stated , inter alia , "... we are facing in this 'Dail' a somewhat unprecedented position where a number of people have been elected to sit in 'Dail Eireann' and who refuse to take their seats , and not merely do they refuse to take them but they deny the validity of the institutions of this State set up over the last number of years . "

The Sinn Fein candidates were not elected to sit in "Dail Eireann" . The policy of Sinn Fein - the policy for which the support of the electorate was solicited by Sinn Fein - has been presented to the public over a period of years . It was again presented to the electorate during the recent election campaign . Through such presentation of it's policy Sinn Fein made it abundently clear that its elected representatives would not take their seats in Leinster House ....... '

Monday, March 14, 2005

MURDER MOST FOUL ....... By Joe Egan . A lecture delivered to Dublin Republicans by Joe Egan on 26th November 1989 : I have had the following document for the past 16 years ; it was given to me by its author , a friend and true Irish Republican and deserves a wider readership - John Horan .

" How do we know how long Wolfe Tone took to die ? It could very well have been eight minutes , not eight days . The only evidence ever produced to support the suicide verdict is an account from a French royalist , a Doctor Lentaigne , of whom little is known .

This same doctor was by his being a royalist first , and working for the British Army , doubly opposed to all Wolfe Tone would stand for . How anyone with the remotest feeling for justice or truth could accept the word of such a man under the circumstances at the time is an insult to ordinary intelligence .

But then as the old cliche says - " where ignorance is bliss it's folly to be wise . " The secrets of a state prison at that period in history are seldom penetrated and even today would be virtually impossible .

Abundant proof is available even today if a thorough search was to take place but we who wish to know the truth have only to know the man : he had dedicated himself to his principles and had seen his friends and compatriots , including his brother , hanged , and he would not let them or his country down by taking his own life ....... "

A person who once worked closely with Ronald Reagan told me recently -

- " Reagan does'nt understand the politics of all these problems . Nor does he understand the business of politics . It's something I like about him ; on the other hand , it's a weakness because he has no internal measuring mechanism , and it makes it difficult for him to assess the political advice he invariably gets as a presidential candidate and as a president . He is subject to being battered around , to never being quite confident enough about the quality and character and sagacity of the advice he's given . "

(MORE LATER).

DEATH LIST 1989 .......Two RUC Officers and two British soldiers , one based in West Germany , were killed by the IRA since mid-May , while a Catholic barman was shot by the UFF bringing the total death toll to 39 this year .No by-line.From 'MAGILL' magazine , July 1989 , pages 22 and 23 .Re-published here in 14 parts .[14 of 14].

1st July : RUC Constable Norman Annett (56) died when two men shot him as he sat with his elderly mother , who was grazed by a bullet , in the living room of her home at Carhill Road , between Maghera and Garvagh , County Derry . Constable Annett , who was based at Antrim Road RUC Station in Belfast was the fifth RUC man to die this year and was due to retire at the end of the month after 34 years in the force . In 1971 , he survived an attack in a Belfast bar . The South Derry Brigade of the IRA claimed responsibility for the killing .

2nd July : British Corporal Steve Smith (43) was killed at Kaiserallee , a residential area of Hanover , West Germany when a bomb exploded underneath his Mercedes car . A native of Yorkshire , the dead soldier was based with the Royal Tank Regiment in the city .